


shifting in the same old shape you always do (late nights at sanctuary general)

by cerie



Series: Late Nights at Sanctuary General [1]
Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: AU, Emergency room, F/M, New Year's Eve
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 08:19:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cerie/pseuds/cerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU: Helen and Will as ER doctors.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>Will covers her hand with his and brushes his thumb against the back of it, soothing her in the language of on-call rooms and calling codes, the language known only by those who keep vigil in the house of life and death.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	shifting in the same old shape you always do (late nights at sanctuary general)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Callie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie/gifts).



> This work is _entirely_ the fault of [Callie](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Callie) who has spent the last three or four nights regaling me with dumb ER tales from [this forum](http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=257985).
> 
> We decided that seeing Will and Magnus run into a few of these would be hilarious :)
> 
> Title is from Cosy in the Rocket by Psapp, better known as the Grey's Anatomy theme song.

1.

The first time he meets her, it’s over a GSW from the south side of town. There’s gang warfare there more often than not and this guy just happens to have been caught in the crossfire. Will doesn’t think he’s an innocent by any stretch of the imagination - the tats tell a story that their patient doesn’t - but he doesn’t work any less on him than he would a nun or a child.

He appreciates that she throws herself into it the same way, laboring over stabilizing him before wheeling him back to surgery. Will’s hands are soaked in blood but it’s out of his hands now and left to the experts. He’d never gone into surgery because, in spite of being a doctor, he’s a little squeamish around open cavities.

He imagines _she_ isn’t, not the way she’d thrust her hand in there to clamp the guy’s aorta. Takes guts, that, and he wonders where she learned them. Ex-military? Maybe. Will doesn’t normally see that kind of balls off a battlefield.

He’s actually sleeping standing up the next time he sees her and his shins get thwacked by a heavy (empty) gurney. He starts awake and blinks at her, tongue ready to deliver some sharp remark, and he’s greeted only with an apologetic smile.

“Quite sorry. I just thought I’d get this out of the way and I apparently put it into yours. You’ll let me buy you coffee to make up for it?”

Will thinks it’s pretty damn funny that a trauma surgeon is pushing around gurneys like an orderly but the offer of coffee perks him right up. Coffee is lifeblood at Sanctuary General and judging from the blue-black bruises beneath her eyes, she needs it as much as he does.

“What? Sure. Lead the way.”

He has coffee, black and strong, and she has tea that she makes by dunking a bag of Earl Grey in a styrofoam cup and hoping for the best. Going based on the wince she makes, he guesses it’s not very good. 

“Did you lose him on the table?”

Her eyes are soft and far away for a moment before she meets his once again. “Yes, I did.”

Will covers her hand with his and brushes his thumb against the back of it, soothing her in the language of on-call rooms and calling codes, the language known only by those who keep vigil in the house of life and death.

“It happens. Nothing is certain, least of all life.”

2.

For some reason, the chapel is always empty. Will feels like the time to get religious would be when your loved one is hanging by a thread but apparently the rest of the hospital doesn’t feel that way. Unlike the break rooms and on-call rooms, the chapel is always deserted and he’s taken to situating himself on a pew and working on his charts when things are slow. He still has his pager and his cell, it’s not like he’s out of pocket, but it feels that way for a little while.

He’s going over yet another chart for yet another drug seeker (some bitch stole my pills, I need a new prescription; some guy hit me in the hand with a hammer, I don’t know, I was minding my own business) when he hears the soft, rubber-soled footsteps of yet another soul doomed to the overnight shift in the emergency department.

He doesn’t expect it to be the surgeon.

Since they last met, he’s figured out (through asking a friend of a friend of a friend who knows a scrub nurse) that she’s Helen Magnus, Oxford and Royal College educated and a hell of a lot more qualified than anyone around here has a right to be. She’s someone whose techniques are studied by residents and specialists alike and Will can’t figure out for the life of him why she slums it working emergency. He guesses he could always ask, but there’s never a good time for it.

“Damn. I guess you found my secret lair. I’m going to have to kill you now,” he deadpans, pleased when he gets a ghost of a laugh from her. Without so much as an invitation, she sits next to him, and for a half a second before he makes room, her hip’s pressed right up against his.

“This is where you sneak off to mid-shift? To the chapel to chart? How horribly mundane of you, Dr. Zimmerman.” There’s a smirk playing at her lips and the shadow of a dimple and Will just wants to kiss it off. He doesn’t and decides to focus on what’s safe, instead: his charting.

“Oh well, you know. I was just standing on the corner minding my own business when some guy punched me in the face and now I need fifteen stitches. Typical Old City street life. I mean, every day when I walk out of here I fear for my life.”

She laughs and the smile deepens, made brighter by the shared joke. “Ah, yes, doctor, I have no idea how my hand is fractured in six places and I certainly have never been to this hospital before in spite of my extensive record of narcotic prescriptions. In fact, I’m allergic to NSAIDS, so you might as well write me Vicodin even though it’s got Tylenol in it. Just to be safe, of course.”

Will tilts his head and watches her for a moment, still working up the nerve to ask her why, exactly, she works emergency. It takes him a few more moments before he has it and he caps his pen and just asks her point blank.

“You know, I found out who you are. Why do you slum it down in ER with me when you could be lecturing or something? There’s got to be better than graveyard for someone like you. You’re...a legend. We studied you in med school.”

She gives him an enigmatic little smile and shakes her head. “Ah, some secrets aren’t meant to be brought to light. Let’s just say that some guy strong-armed me into coming here, hmm? And I’m quite content to stay and keep things as they are.”

It’s actually a non-answer but it’s more than he had a few minutes ago, so he’ll take it.

3.

It’s New Years’ Eve and Will drew the short straw, landing him on shift right when all the drunks start rolling in. There’s the guy who thought that snowboarding on a cafeteria tray outside his dorm was a pretty great idea but the spiral fractures in his femur and tibia tell a different story. There’s a few MVAs, made annoying only because the “patients” are more drunk and obnoxious than actually injured (I got GEICO, bitch, hurry up and file this shit so I can get out of here) and there’s the girl in bed 4C that has alcohol poisoning and is currently vomiting over every available surface, so much so that they can’t even get an IV in her.

He’s filing one of the MVAs before picking up his next chart when he slams into her, Magnus, and her face looks a little pale and drawn. She shoves a chart into his hands. “Take this and I’ll take anything you like for the rest of the night.” Will knows it has to be bad if she’s trading the devil she knows for any manner of _unknown_ things but he likes her, so he bites the bullet and takes it.

“Just so you know, you can get Linda Blair in 4C for that,” he calls out, heading back down the hall to whatever it is that Magnus doesn’t want. It seems simple enough, a laceration from punching glass that’s going to require a couple stitches and he still has his head in the chart when he walks into the room.

“Okay, Mr. Gr--holy _shit_ that is not okay.” Apparently Patient Laceration, in spite of being tatted up from head to toe, is afraid of needles and his lady of choice decided to give him a little oral comfort. Her mouth’s still on the guy’s dick when Will walks in and it’s only after he flails a little and nearly bursts a blood vessel that she pulls off.

“Yeah, I am so killing her for this,” he mumbles, stitching up the wound while the girlfriend (or some bitch, as it usually goes during these things) surreptitiously wipes her mouth and tries not to make eye contact. Will isn’t really keen on making eye contact either and once they’re done and out (with only _one_ prescription for painkillers, thanks) he stalks back out into the hallway to find Magnus.

He finds her at the nurse’s station, filling out the chart for what he guesses was the girl down in 4C. He sees that she’s got on a different scrub top, one that doesn’t match her bottoms, and he hopes that she went all Exorcist on her. It would be payback for walking in on Blow Job Sally and Patient Laceration.

“Please tell me she wasn’t giving head when you gave me that chart,” he says, not bothering to lower his voice. Magnus flushes a little and nods in the affirmative, confirming his suspicions. Oh, she’s going to get it. Bad. For possibly more than just tonight, if Will gets his way about it. Then again, he’s never been able to hold a grudge and least of all against her.

“Sorry. I was so stunned that I simply turned around and walked out. How long must I do your bidding to make up for it? What punishment will you exact?”

She’s batting her lashes a little and Will knows he’s going to give into her. He just hopes he can come up with something to get her back before he loses his righteous anger streak.

“I...will get back to you on that.”

4\. 

It’s just starting to warm up when he and Magnus share a shift again and he’s just turned up at the hospital to find that he’s not actually scheduled. He had been scheduled, of course, but through some kind of insane machinations, Magnus has managed to not only get them both scheduled off and their shifts replaced but also score a pair of tickets to go see the Old City Sasquatches play the New City Werewolves.

So it’s not the Blue Jays. The gesture is fantastic and he’s shocked that she even knows that he likes baseball. It’s not like it comes up in conversation between caffeine IVs and runny noses. He offers to drive and she shakes her head, leading him to a sporty little silver coupe that looks like it has a convertible top. Of course. Much better than his beater of a car, which is getting replaced when it either A) dies beyond resurrection or B) he pays off his student loans. Will’s betting on the former before the latter.

The tickets they have are great, even though neither team is anywhere approaching the major leagues, and Will has a fantastic time. He and Magnus drink beer and eat nachos and yell for the home team in a way he didn’t expect out of Dr. Prim and Proper and he loves every second of it. She’s gorgeous when she lets her hair down and has a little fun and the lines around her eyes soften and her laughs and smiles get a little deeper and more real.

It’s the middle of the seventh inning stretch when he spots them on the jumbotron and he points it out, getting a shy little blush out of Magnus when she realizes it’s the kiss cam and they’re apparently obligated. Will’s really only expecting to give her a peck but when he leans in and touches his mouth to hers, there’s a spark there that he just can’t deny. Ever since she met his eyes over GSW Gangbanger all those months ago, there’s been a pull between them that he’s wanted to explore and now, it seems, he’s getting a little taste of that.

He cups her cheek and deepens the kiss for a moment before pulling away and tucking her hair back behind her ear. Anything meaningful he’d wanted to say would be drowned out by the cheers of the crowd and he smiles instead, glad to see she’s mirroring that. He pulls back and settles into his seat to watch the last two innings but there’s one very significant change:

She’s slipped her hand in his and when the batter hits a triple and everyone starts cheering him on, she squeezes tight.

Will could get used to this.

5\. 

Will is so exhausted he isn’t actually paying attention to much of anything, least of all who is currently occupying the bunk in the on-call room. He tumbles into it without a care and mutters a curse when he realizes it’s currently occupied by a softly-crying Magnus. Will didn’t think he’d hit her that hard when he crashed in but he shifts to sit up and rubs his hand over her back anyway, murmuring soft words in order to soothe any hurts.

It’s a few minutes before she looks up at him, eyes red-rimmed and stained with mascara tracks and Will can’t help but brush his thumb against her cheek to try and clear up the worst of the mess. He barely knows her outside of the occasional coffee-and-tea date and the one trip out to the ballpark but he likes what they have. It’s simple and sweet and there’s the potential for something more when they get more than twenty minutes of consecutive time together and there’s _not_ someone dying on the table in the next room.

“Want to tell me about it? Never seen you cry before.”

Magnus shakes her head and sits up properly, sliding into his lap and kissing him with a fierceness that had been absent the last time they kissed. Her mouth is hot on his and demanding, teeth nipping at his lip and sliding down his jaw and neck and leaving bruises in its wake. Will slides his hands up under her scrub top and pulls it off, worrying for half a second that he left the door unlocked before his fingers find the catch of her bra and render higher thinking a completely moot concept.

His mouth latches onto one perfect nipple while Magnus shifts up and shimmies out of her pants and his are a thing of the past in the next thirty seconds following. One thing about being an on-call physician means shifting gears faster than the average human and there’s only about three minutes between kissing and fucking at any given moment. Their time together is precious and stolen in scraps and while he wants to learn her and stretch it out, they’re racing against the clock.

Still, that doesn’t mean that he can’t take care of her and while she’s moving in his lap, he snakes a hand down between them and rubs his thumb over her clit. He knows he hits the right spot when she gasps and sinks her teeth down into his shoulder to muffle the sound and he grins to himself, oddly smug. She’s always so poised and put together and right now he’s making her fly apart.

They don’t come together, too worked up and too real for that kind of perfection, but she comes and he follows shortly after and it’s good and hot and satisfying for all that it lacks finesse. The sweat’s cooling against the base of his spine while he holds her, one hand stroking through her damp hair, and it’s only after their heart rates slow and come out of the tachycardia range that he hears her speak.

“Today’s her birthday. Ashley, my daughter. She died three years ago in a car crash.”

Now it makes sense, why she gave up her career and her life to come slum it in the ER. She’s been running from something, from the ghost of Ashley, and Will is sort of glad he never figured that out and heard it from her mouth instead. He brushes a messy kiss against her temple, unsure of what to say. Based on the way she stills in his arms, he guesses the right thing to say was nothing at all.

“Thank you.”


End file.
